If Your Life Is Bad In These 11 Ways, You Can Absolutely Blame Your Phone
Disconnecting from your phone can entirely change your life.
voronaman / Shutterrstock While social media can often provide social support and feelings of belonging to isolated groups and spark creativity for inspired users, the reality is that social media, screen time, and our cell phones are largely sabotaging our health and well-being. As a study published in the JMIR Mental Health journal explains, social comparisons feel impossible to avoid on social media, even on a subconscious level, making us feel worse about our lives, appearance, and relationships.
From feeling like you’re behind in life to picking apart your personal style and even adopting hobbies from people online that don’t add value to your personal life, if your life is bad in these ways, you can absolutely blame your phone. When you disconnect, ground yourself in reality, and practice boundaries with your phone, everything changes for the better.
If your life is bad in these 11 ways, you can absolutely blame your phone
1. You feel behind in life
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The whole concept of timelines in life is arbitrary and relatively useless. Especially if you’re doomscrolling on social media and adopting a feeling of inadequacy because you’re not doing what everyone else is in life, other people’s milestones aren’t going to be helpful for growth.
Many of us are perfectly aware that some people get their “big breaks” after they turn 50, meet their soulmate in the last half of their lives, and even divorce bad partners in their 20s, yet the second we get on our phones, we’re holding ourselves to arbitrary timelines that only make us feel behind.
Nobody’s life is going to follow the same timeline. The achievements, relationships, and success that other people have in their 20s may not be right for you at the same age. Maybe, they’re not right for you at all, so why burden yourself with this debilitating anxiety and fear about being behind, based on what everyone else is doing, or rather, posting about on social media?
2. Your relationship feels boring
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While some people who replace curiosity with comfort may fall into the trap of a stagnant relationship with their partner, oftentimes, when we second-guess our connections for no real reason, it’s because of our phones.
We’re subconsciously comparing our relationships and partners with the highlight reel we see on social media. While it might feel like we’re doing something right by expressing our fears about stagnancy and pushing for change, trying to copy other people’s perceived relationship dynamics online only drives partners away from each other.
3. You struggle to focus
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For young people, heightened levels of screen time can negatively affect learning, memory, and focus, but we’re not simply protected from these cognitive consequences just because we’re adults. In fact, people who regularly overuse social media and spend too much time on their phones often struggle with concentration and focus.
From little tasks at home to projects at work, concentrating for more than a few moments feels impossible. If your life feels difficult in this way, you can absolutely blame your phone for sabotaging your attention span.
4. You’re insecure about your appearance
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Even outside of the internet, beauty standards about who’s attractive and who’s not, based on seemingly arbitrary traits like symmetry, skin color, body size, and rigid gender self-expressions, are entirely misguided. They guilt people into feeling less empowered, secure, and confident, and often urge people to adopt similarly toxic and unrealistic expectations for themselves.
However, beauty is subjective. Everyone’s attractiveness is individual, unique, and intentional, even outside of beauty standards and expectations.
Of course, social media often amplifies beauty standards that negatively harm a person’s self-esteem and well-being, so if your life is bad in these ways, chances are you can absolutely blame your phone.
5. Mornings are full of anxiety
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When the first thing you reach for in the morning is your phone, it’s not surprising that your early AM hours are riddled with anxious thoughts and chaos. You’re not giving your brain a chance to wake up. You’re startling it away with a loud alarm and 15 minutes of doomscrolling, sparking a nervous system disaster before you leave your bed.
When your phone becomes the center of your morning routine, you’re sabotaging the rest of the day. So, if you wake up with anxiety, feel like you’re always waking up on the wrong side of the bed, or feel exhausted before doing anything, you can absolutely blame your phone.
Even if that means plugging your phone in on the other side of the room or having an unplugged morning before starting work or catching up on emails, we promise, it’s worth it.
6. You feel disconnected and lonely
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According to a study published in the Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine journal, people who spend more time online and scrolling social media are more likely to report higher levels of loneliness. Of course, it’s not only about the physical time spent online, because if you spend free time reading, journaling, or working out, you mediate those lonely feelings almost entirely. It’s about comparing our lives on social media and the feeling of disconnect, even when you’re talking to people online.
When you’re always seeing highlight reels of a person’s life, you’re not understanding that they’re also likely spending time alone at home or feeling bored from time to time. You start comparing yourself, feeling lonely, and isolating, even if you’re only truly seeing a fragment of another person’s envied routine. Yes, we all have struggles, but solving them by escaping into social media and being hard on ourselves isn’t the way.
7. You’re overwhelmed by emotions
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Many people suppress their emotions subconsciously, using distractions like doomscrolling on social media or watching a YouTube video on their phones to avoid addressing their own discomfort. Even if it gives them a fleeting sense of comfort amid the chaos of emotional regulation as a beginner, it ends up putting them at risk for more mental health concerns.
If your life feels bad in these ways, like feeling emotionally numb or constantly bombarded by complex emotions at random times, you can absolutely blame your phone. You probably use it as a crutch, and it’s not entirely your fault, considering they’re built to be distracting and to create a dependency.
8. You're rushing and stressed
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When your nervous system is in fight or flight mode, it’s common to rely on things like doomscrolling or mindless entertainment to distract you. Especially if your phone is the root cause of your rushing around and feeling of being behind, which it often is, turning back to it for sensory input and distraction is common.
You’re always feeling like there’s something to do, but probably feel like productivity is impossible, because you’re stuck in a state of perpetual chaos internally.
9. Silence feels uncomfortable
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Whether it’s spending time alone, appreciating solitude, or simply sitting in silence with yourself, if your life feels difficult or bad in these areas, you can absolutely blame your phone.
If you’ve grown accustomed to appreciating the distractions of a phone when you feel awkward in a conversation or relying on it to distract from your own thoughts when you’re alone, chances are you struggle with silence. Instead of benefiting from the reflection, rest, and calmness alone time offers, you’re probably left feeling chronically lonely and isolated.
10. Creativity feels forced
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If you’re always comparing yourself to people online and avoiding alone time or boredom with your phone, chances are creativity and inspiration feel forced. You struggle with making mistakes, playing around, or doing things just for you, because you’re seeking validation from sharing your art online or comparing it to people’s creative processes online.
We’re not making up this connection. A study published in the Frontiers in Psychiatry journal found that heightened smartphone use and screen time often sabotage creativity in subtle ways. Not only does it drain self-esteem and motivation, but it also often adds another layer of validation, comparison, and anxiety that’s hard to work through.
11. Your sleep schedule is inconsistent
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A great deal of research has proven that heightened screen time, both throughout the day and around sleep times, is associated with difficulties falling asleep and staying asleep. From a lack of a great sleep schedule to disturbances throughout the night and poor sleep quality, the more time you spend on your phone, the more likely you are to miss out on essential rest.
Even if your life feels bad in many other ways, and you’ve convinced yourself that your phone is the best way to unwind and relieve stress, chances are you’re making everything worse. Use journaling, mindfulness, and exercise as stress relievers, not a screen that only keeps your brain yearning for more.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a senior editorial strategist with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
